THE protests against proposals that Syrian rebels be armed betrays an alarming level of innocence.

In a better world, that contradiction in terms known as a moral foreign policy should be applied, but Middle Eastern politics of blood, sand and oil are rarely simple and never moral. Those who would berate American plans to arm a set of Syrian rebels who are almost as unlovely as the Assad regime should ask whose interests a policy of non-intervention in the Syrian abyss might actually suit. The nature of geopolitics means the West cannot allow Syria to evolve into Putin's Protectorate.

If for no other reason than checking the evolving power of Russia, whose own relationship with democracy is ambiguous, Ireland must stand with America.

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